Posted
by
timothyon Saturday October 24, 2009 @07:05PM
from the sounds-like-a-plan dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reportedly mulling over plans to come up with an international edition of its hugely popular iPlayer service, in a bid to allow global audiences to catch up with some of its top shows, according to BBC Worldwide, the corporation's profit-making arm. BBC Worldwide said that the move would help revamp its business model, and thereby help the corporation in raking in significant profits through its premium content."

From the article: "Luke Bradley Jones, chief of the BBC Worldwide’s digital operations in the US, said in a statement: “Millions of people love Torchwood and would probably pay ten bucks an episode rather than two bucks”.
Or they'll laugh all their way to usenet or bittorrent. $10 per episode?!

This is one of those quotes that has to be remembered. Paying 10 dollars (and most likely 10 euros) for a SINGLE tv episode...

This guy is not just out of touch with reality, he might actually be classified as insane. Imagine having to pay that for something like well, Torchwood. It has 3 seasons, each 13 eps long, so lets make it an even 30x 10 is 300 dollars for this show alone.

Season 1 on DVD costs 47 dollars (on amazon) and 2 costs 57. Lets assume season 3 costs 60 and you have to pay on the iPlayer D

Their DVDs are priced at similarly silly levels. I own quite a few Blake's 7 VHS tapes, and I was considering picking up the complete series on DVD until I saw the price. I'd just bought the whole of Babylon 5, so that was my price comparison. Each season of Babylon 5 costs £13 and contains 22 episodes (around 50p/episode). Each season of Blake's 7 costs £25 and contains 13 episodes (around £2/episode). Given that Blake's 7 was made much earlier (1978 vs 1994 for the first season of e

Well, if you have a tv tuner card in your computer, you can just hook the vcr to it and stream the shows onto your computer, then make your own dvds from that. Oh, wait, you're talking pounds sterling, you're British. Sorry. The solution would work, but you're taxed into bankruptcy there if you have a tv, a tv card, or anything the Beeb could possibly make a shilling on...

No, the licence fee only applies if you use equipment to receive broadcasts - *owning* the equipment doesn't need a licence. So transferring from VHS to DVD via a TV card would be perfectly acceptable.

The problem is that most US shows get shit, samey or self-parodying after a couple of seasons. Short runtimes lead to this not happening. What happens instead is teams generally stay together and make something new.

What will it take for the US public to get their head around big budget != high quality. Red Dwarf had a tiny budget compared to most US sci-fi series. Was dozens of times better than most of them too. The Children of Earth five part series had a special effects department that consisted primarily of some rubber puppets, a few CGI flame effects and a person with a copy of Audacity to do the alien voices (probably). Result = Very Creepy Miniseries.

I hope they include QI in their international lineup. I've been waiting for that show to become available here since I first saw it on YouTube, but no US station has agreed to carry it. These days such videos are taken down pretty quickly, so a legitimate feed of BBC programs would be very welcome indeed.

The international edition of the iPlayer would include host of popular shows from the BBC's array, such as Torchwood, Doctor Who, and Top Gear, along with historical stuffs from the BBC archives

However it goes on to say

However, the international iteration of the iPlayer wouldn't show domestic content

One big difference between BBC and BBC America right now is commercials and their impact on what we see in America. If the international iPlayer still gives Americans the sliced-up 40-minute shows (as opposed to the 1-hour versions seen in the UK), then they aren't offering anything that isn't already offered in the US on cable (this could be considered "domestic").

Furthermore, those of us who are fans of Top Gear also know that we have missed a lot o

I just can't see the Beeb redistributing imports like the excellent
Spiral [bbc.co.uk], the English
title for Engrenages [canalplus.fr]. Most of this stuff
ends up on DVD (I bought Spiral on DVD from Australia, complete with
SBS's [sbs.com.au] Aussie subtitles), but not always.

- Doctor Who and Top Gear:)- PayPal micro-payment as an alternative to watching ads, or where you can't get any ads for.- A price that is somewhere in the range of what you'd get from advertisers.

Why that price? Because I know what you get for ads on the web. And those prices are so low per individual viewer, that BBC would still make a better profit, by asking 5 cent per show, or something like that. A price that nobody can ever think of as too expensive.

I would be happy to pay for something that deserves that money.

Comedy Central should do the same with The Daily Show. Come on. Those prices are like nothing! And you still make a hell of a better profit, as when advertising! And people still can choose to watch the ads, if it's not worth money for them.It's a no-brainer! A win-win!

You could also let us buy a whole season at once. 65 cent for 13 episodes.

Oh, and of course I expect to be able to save it right from the player. Because I can save it anyway (After all, it already had to be transferred to my computer, to be watchable!), and using my Firefox add-on is not even any hassle. But the gesture of letting me save it right in your player, will show a friendliness that crates important sympathies.

P.S.: I'm a bit ill today, and not that fit. so sorry if my sentences look a bit weird to read. ^^ I hope it all makes sense anyway.

Personally, I would pay the normal license fee for access to all of BBC's content. Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever happen. For some things they simply don't have the rights for redistribution outside of the UK. A good example is football. On the odd occasion that they broadcast a football match, there's just no way they will be able to negotiate rights outside of the UK.

Still, if I could find a legal way to watch Dr. Who that would be a tremendous step forward for me. Living in the country

Those of us who have BBC America are getting, generally, 2/3rds of the programming per show that our British counterparts get. This can be especially egregious in some Top Gear episodes where 20 minutes is removed to make room for commercials. And then to make matters worse they sell those same butchered episodes to us in American stores as well.

I would happily pay to see the full Top Gear episodes that I am missing, especially from the seasons that have never been shown in Am

I seriously don't know how you put up with them. When I lived in the US, I bought a Replay TV, which skipped the ads very nicely...wonderful device.

Now I'm living in Finland, the US shows I watch on TV have half the number of ads, so we have the show 'going to ads' and then coming right back again....better than actually having the ads, but still very annoying.

...oh, and I now remember *why* they're so annoying...it's because the shows have a tendency to summarise what happened before it broke for the ads, so when you don't have any actual ads, the summary is completely unnecessary...so we keep going...come on..we know all this...get on with it! Tsk.

...oh, and I now remember *why* they're so annoying...it's because the shows have a tendency to summarise what happened before it broke for the ads, so when you don't have any actual ads, the summary is completely unnecessary...

No, the problem is worse than that. As I mentioned, the BBC shows are a full hour of content in the UK. When they come over for American broadcast, they trim out over 20 minutes of the show in order to make room for commercials. Sure, the ads suck, but the fact that we never get the content over here sucks even more. If you go to your favorite place to buy DVDs in America and buy Top Gear on DVD, you'll get the butchered version we see on BBC America (40 minutes per episode). If someone buys the sam

Probably because BBC America isn't the BBC, its a commercial entity set up to screw you out of as much $$ as they can get away with (the American dream, right?). The BBC itself is not allowed to fund any programmes not available to UK viewers, so these corporates have to be legally and organisationally separate, and entirely self-funded.

So the BBC will be selling the full hour episodes to BBC America, which then 'reformats' it for domestic viewing based on the current environment - ie adding loads of ads.

The Mythbusters style drives me up the wall. Instead of having the myths presented in sequence, you have 2 minutes of one, switch to the next, two minutes of that, switch..... what the hell is all that for? Do they think viewers would get bored if they had to spend more than a couple of minutes on one subject? It made it extremely difficult to follow exactly what was going on.

I emailed them years ago asking how to pay for their service. They responded that they have no way to let me pay for the service, or more importantly had no way of providing my content. So I had to go another route. I pay for a UK proxy; specifically the VPN service:

http://www.ukproxyserver.co.uk/

IF the BBC has VOD, that still won't help with ITV, SKY, and Channel 4 etc.

In fact I'm watching to Russell Howard's Good News Episode 1. Review: it's OK, but he's not nearly as funny solo as he is on Mock The

So why exactly does it have to be legally compulsory to subscribe to it if you want to watch any TV? Why is this the only subscription TV that you are obliged to subscribe to? Why, if we really want to make it compulsory to subscribe to some TV, do we not allow you to pick the provider of your choice? Why is it, that if you want to watch the English cricket team go down in flames yet again, you are obliged to subscribe to two TV broadcast se

You don't need to have a TV license to access BBC content, you need a TV licence to own equipment capable of receiving broadcast television signals. The iPlayer is on-demand streaming, and so a TV license is not required. Some of the online sports coverage is streamed live, so you do need a license for that. I don't own a TV, but I do use iPlayer a lot.

No, it's (mostly) Adobe only, using Flash for streaming (via RTMP) and AIR for downloaded programmes. The iPhone version uses HTTP streams.
get_iplayer [linuxcentre.net] is a nice script to download iplayer content a little more permanently.

If you've got a slower computer, I'd recommend investigating get_iplayer. It's a fairly simple command-line Perl script that can download videos from iPlayer, in any of the available formats. I've found that VLC uses about half as much CPU as Flash playing them back. It also has a nice PVR mode which you can invoke via cron, where it will automatically download new episodes for programs for you.

UK version was perfect length, US version should not exist, ITV reimported it and it makes me cring (and not in the good way UK version did), a few popular programs are:QIDr whoMichel and Webb look (makers of peep show)Mock the week (even without Frankie Boyle it will still be great and probably good enough to get international appeal, like the daily show)Top gear (actually we all laugh at US cars over here so that probably wouldn't go down well)Never mind the buzzcocks (well if they find a good presenter)A

This [youtube.com] goes down well? how about a review of you #1 car [dhadm.com] (segment on show was actually harsher but i couldn't find a link).

TBH never heard of it, but yes because it looks ugly and has stupid doors, you would have been better talking about the Saleen because despite the same stupid doors it doesn't look like it was designed by a blind ape, but the Bugatti is by far the worlds best supercar, because its a true engineering masterpiece (not just fast). Watch TG review of any american car, with a few exceptions (su

The F150 is the #1 "car" because of fleet buyers, and because Toyota's equivalent too the Hylax here isn't quite as good as the European version (lot of the same parts, but different chassis). Incidentally, the Chevy Silverado would be the #1 "car" if a chunk of them weren't sold as GMCs. Plus, the new F150 released since that review is quite a bit better.

Fleet buyers are the same reason why Vauxhall exists despite being total pants.

Also, most of America is not the Deep South, and doesn't even like the Deep

Watch TG review of any american car, with a few exceptions (such as the ford transit van) we think they suck

Well, the transit in most incarnations has always been a German / English design, totally independent of Ford US. It's only the most recent ones that've been styled in the US, onto one of Ford's 'international' platforms (from Germany, IIRC, & used everywhere bar the US), but still built in Southampton (not sure if they're still made in Köln).

I'm curious how you would know the quality of the engineering on any supercar. Do you have actual access to the products in question? Anything can be made to look good or seem pretty fancy, it's one of those things that I would think requires some quality time.

Watch TG review of any american car, with a few exceptions (such as the ford transit van) we think they suck, and it's not just anti-Americanism we really do think you guys make crap cars.

Uh you know that JC owns a FORD GT40, right? Also, if I remember correctly, the F-150 review was of a Lightning which everyone over here thinks is ridiculous, and most of the complaints involved it's size being impractical for the UK. Duh! The road system and fuel prices are dramatically different and cars that work one place don't work in another. I mean I'd be a little bonkers to drive some of the tiny cars that are popular in Europe on an interstate just like you wouldn't try and drive a F-150 through

Actually if you watch the link (it's missing the attack on americans for liking such a stupid car which he adds later), he describes it as the worst car he's ever driven, the criticism that i care about are:It's an "off-road car" without 4x4 or an on-road care that's ridiculously big.It doesn't have any safety certification a car needs.The controls are very loose.The interior is shite (objectively speaking)"The brakes are the size of milk tops"

BBC's sitcoms aren't great but they have loads of great "panel" shows: they're ostensibly quiz shows but participants are usually either comedians or victims.
Examples:

Have I Got News For You: the first of this type - now has a "rotating" host since the original one had to leave after a prostitute/cocaine scandal (well, of course he had to turn up for one more show so that everyone else could make fun of him). The regular panelists are getting a bit lazy now - but the show has been running for more than 15 years. Think "The Daily Show" with less substance or heart but better insults.

Mock The Week: a newer version of the same thing but with explicit stand-up parts because it's 100% comedians. Google "Frankie Boyle", is all I can say.

Never Mind The Buzzcocks: music-oriented show where participants insult pop stars, frequently face-to-face. Chair seems to be rotating for this one now, too.

Would I Lie To You: quite new, a bit better-behaved than the others - but still entertaining

now has a "rotating" host since the original one had to leave after a prostitute/cocaine scandal

To clarify, he only left after the second scandal. He survived the first, more or less, but after the second it was basically impossible for him to continue because all of the contestants were mocking him, rather than the news.

because all of the contestants were mocking him, rather than the news.

I remember that last episode and it was by far Paul Merton who really went all out sticking the knife in. He showed a genuinely vindictive side on that episode. He had a special t-shirt printed with newspaper headlines about the host which he wore. He basically didn't let the host get out a straight question for nearly the entirety of the show. The host, Angus Deayton, put up one of the most valiant efforts I've ever seen to take everyth

If you like Frankie Boyle, you might like Argumental [uktv.co.uk] on Dave. quote:

I never thought I'd see the day where Frankie Boyle would be referred to as only the second most offensive ginger haired chap to appear on a stage and make people piss themselves laughing while at the same time leaving them feeling both disturbed and afraid for their own safety.

Buzzcocks - was brilliant in the early days, Mark Lamarr would tease bimbo contestants by telling them the answers and they *still* wouldn't get it right. Hilarious at times.

Have I got News for You - still good, but not nearly as good as the Radio4 version, the News Quiz. Its kind of a dumbed-down version for prime-time TV audiences who need pictures to go with their comedy.

we hate the fact that BBC dropped the P2P idea because they couldn't figure out how to get it to work

Actually, "we the public" hated the P2P idea because the BBC was using "we the public's" bandwidth to distribute its content instead of providing its own. The P2P iPlayer was only liked by people who read Slashdot.

Why do you care whether P2P is used or not? As long as your downloads complete in a timely manner, what difference does it make how it got there?

You are kidding right, If my kids want to watch Cbeebies, I can just pop them on the spare laptop and off they go! They don't care about DRM, they can use the interface. I think you're just too set in your old-fashioned ways

The public don't care, those that do don't hate the iPlayer because it has no DRM

and regional limits - even for shows that should be in the public domain

Bullshit, we paid for the content, we want BBC worldwide to make some money off you foreigners, so it can put on more quality programming without us paying for it.

we hate the fact that BBC dropped the P2P idea because they couldn't figure out how to get it to work

I quite like the fact they dropped the P2P idea because it was silly to expect people to install a program to get VOD. As a linux user I'm also glad they moved to air+flash instead of windows only+drm.

I don't care about the DRM because, effectively, it doesn't exist. It's only on the downloadable content, not the streaming content. If you use get_iplayer, you can grab the.mov or.flv files and play them back with VLC on any platform.

You don't need to install anything to get at the streaming content; just go to the iPlayer site and click play. I don't have a TV anymore, but I have an old laptop connected to a computer, which I use to watch BBC shows.

Just saying it like it is, take a look around the majority of people think we should.

5. In order to meet the BBC's obligations to rights holders, the BBC will embed downloadable BBC with digital rights management security - from here [bbc.co.uk]

meh i was wrong, but1) The public still don't care2) It doesn't apply to the flash version3) I'd rather have it with DRM than not exist at all (or spend more money on content)4) Most objection to DRM is when it restricts something you have paid to own, DRM is an acceptable evil when used properly (such as pay to rent)

It is of course reasonable to expect people to install the Adobe AIR runtime and the iPlayer AIR application.

When they launched the P2P version it was not alongside its flash based streaming. AIR is based around the f

Be careful. They might start trying to pull money from people that have already paid the "taxes" (there is some piece of semantics that makes the tv license not quite a tax). For instance dvds of bbc shows aren't noticebly cheaper than other channels despite the bbc's funding model. It's possible that they might take this route with online content if charging becomes normal for other channels.

Also, I do object to the tv license, mostly because of their marketing department. Junkmail is never welcome but the

Be careful. They might start trying to pull money from people that have already paid the "taxes" (there is some piece of semantics that makes the tv license not quite a tax). For instance dvds of bbc shows aren't noticebly cheaper than other channels despite the bbc's funding model. It's possible that they might take this route with online content if charging becomes normal for other channels.

Indeed. I'd actually say that DVDs of BBC shows (at least the popular ones) are more expensive than those from other channels, given the amount of content. UK series tend to be waaaay shorter than US series (and lower budget per episode, often) and yet somehow I'd be roughly looking at paying the same price for a series of Dr Who as for a US series. Dr Who is good but it's not good enough for me to pay that much, so I never buy any.

Also, I do object to the tv license, mostly because of their marketing department. Junkmail is never welcome but theirs often contains borderline threats. They also have a nasty habbit of sending salesmen to people who ask not to be spammed.

I've heard it alleged that the BBC don't have direct control over the lic

tbh, hardly anyone in the UK gets too bothered about "government plans stupid controlling idea $X" stories. They usually just mean that some consultancy is going to be paid a load of money to do nothing until the budget comes around and the plan gets silently dropped. It's mildly expensive but not really scary.

That's basically what I've done, although in my case it's also because my current house doesn't have an aerial to receive terrestrial broadcasts and I don't want to pay for a cable subscription. But - don't get rid of your TV, plug your laptop into it so that it's just like watching TV but without the license fee:->

The current government is obsessed with control and can't resist the urge to just poke at anything they can. The TV license isn't an example of this government's craziness, it goes back waa

If I lived in the UK I'd get rid of my TV rather than pay some stupid ~$300/year BBC fee.

£115.

I can watch my favorite shows on my laptop, and take-up reading to fill in the rest of the time.

But in the USA, you'd still be paying for public TV if you did this.

Your country is really messed up with overzealous government control.

I just heard last night that the UK is measuring trash via some fancy-new chip-embedded cans, which will gradually be distributed to the populace. Purpose? To see how much waste you throw-away and eventually start charging you per pound. It's a way to encourage recycling instead of trashing.

Are you suggesting private waste collection/disposal companies don't change by weight (or volume)?I'll be happy to pay less for waste collection with this system (I'm certain I produce less waste than average). Similar systems are used in other countries.

Yes of course, but the idea is that trash can would have an extra tax (per pound) placed on top of it, while the recycle bins would not. (At least that's how the UK guy explained it to a CNN reporter.) It's a way to encourage people to recycle rather than trash their items.

And based upon my previous purchases from the UK, one pound == 1/2 dollar, so 142.5 == 1/2 * $$$ ---> $285. Close to my initial $300/year estimate.

I think this part of the website is funny. Talk about Big Brother - "How do I let you know that I don't need a licence? Answer: Just click here to enter your details. When we receive your declaration, we'll send you a letter confirming the next steps. These are: * We will send a TV Licensing officer to your address to confirm the situation. ** Once

Not only that, Channel 4 make a large quantity of their content available on 4od(nasty flash site but still vaguely usable in linux) for 30 days, or indefinitely for stuff in their backcatalogue, such as the comic strip presents and every episode of peep show, whereas the BBC keeps recently aired content online for 7 whole days and expects you to buy the DVD if you would like to watch anything older... If i miss the first episode of a programme and realise this just after the second episode has aired i then

A lot of iPlayer shows are now on the 'season catch-up' model, where they stay online until a week after the entire season has run. Of course, if you're using get_iplayer, you just add the show title to the PVR mode and it will grab each new episode as it comes online.

A lot doesn't equate to nearly enough, and i don't think i've ever seen it happen for radio content. PVR mode in get_iplayer is a great idea, but it still needs me to anticipate the first episode for anything that isn't in catch-up mode. Then there's the issue of older programming, which BBC worldwide have got their grubby hands on and are holding to ransom on paid-for cable/satellite channels, can't we at least have more repeats?

Probably not helpful but I've always been intrigued by the Beeb's approach to torrenting, and the blind eye they tend to turn - to the recently aired stuff anyway, rather than DVD rips. There are a couple of good sites that share a lot of up-to-date BBC content. The BBC have only ever got after the person who shared Dr Who pre-air, the sites themselves are left alone. I wonder if, under this rumoured pay model that will continue.

As a brit, watching that reminds me of all the is bad about US TV. It's over produced, badly edited, misconstrued action (for dramatic effect), constant 'dramatic' sound track, 'dramatic' voice over, all about the confrontational aspect....

Compare to the UK version and as you say, it's more about the business, more 'factual' there's no dramatic voice-over providing unneeded 'tension'.

It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer 'grabs her can' gummi venus de

Homer: Somebody had to take the babysitter home. Then I noticed she was sitting on [splice] her sweet [splice] can. [splice] -- o I grab
her -- [splice] sweet can. [splice] Oh, just thinking about
[splice] her [splice] can [splice] I just wish I had he --
[splice] sweet [splice] sweet [splice] s-s-sweet [splice]

The BBC is a really weird organisation. It's a state-run TV channel, which usually we assume means "propaganda mouthpiece". The BBC is set up in a peculiar way whereby the state collects the money for them but the government is not allowed (in theory) control over the BBC itself. The BBC's charter has various requirements to show balance in political reporting and the government is denied direct mechanisms to interfere in editorial decisions. This generally works pretty well and the BBC is widely considered a fairly accurate, relatively unbiased news source.

This independence can fall down a bit; when the BBC aired allegations that the government had exaggerated evidence in support of the Iraq war, a whole complicated scandal resulted including the suicide of the civil servant who made the allegations (after he was basically abandoned by his department and hounded by the media). The government set up an enquiry called the Hutton Report, which viewed a lot of evidence (including a draft where a political advisor / spin doctor suggested changing "may have weapons of mass destruction" to "has weapons of mass destruction") and came to the conclusion that nobody was really at fault but the BBC should have done better. A bit mystifying to many of us. Anyhow, some say that the BBC has been a bit more cautious about government criticism since then. Nevertheless it (appears to) remain a fairly comprehensive and unbiased source, compared to many of the other major players in news.

I believe they also forced Greg Dike (head of the BBC when it was critical over the bullshit that was the Hutton report) out. IMO they managed this despite the rules, because one of the BBC trust board members was married to a labour MP. However one thing that is interesting is that none of the commercial stations really pushed the government on this bullshit which suggest they are just as controlled by the BBC (well C4 sort of did but ITV & five just rolled over IMO)

Have you seen ITV news recently? It's like a cross between the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Heat Magazine.

The BBC1 news is going the same way. The only TV news I watch now is Channel 4 News [channel4.com]. Channel 4, although partly commercial is a public service broadcaster so its news tends to be reasonably independent.

The BBC's charter has various requirements to show balance in political reporting and the government is denied direct mechanisms to interfere in editorial decisions. This generally works pretty well and the BBC is widely considered a fairly accurate, relatively unbiased news source.

unless you are an American Republican. I mentioned the Beeb as a fairly unbiased "outside" news source to a Republican friend of mine and the venom was immediate. Yes, I think they do a pretty good job. But it does seem that the

That should indicate to you just how far right the american right wing is compared to the rest of the western world. But I'm not sure I agree with you anyway. The BBC does a good a job of being neutral as it is as possible to do. They report facts, and don't mix editorial content with news.

If the beeb isn't saying what these politicians want said, then it has to be doing a sterling job. You can tell just how good a job its doing by measuring the amount of vitriol said politicians and supporters spew when confronted with it:)

Weird beastie it may be, but you make two errors. It is not state-run in any meaningful sense and the state does not collect the money. Wikipedia has a decent summary of the licensing and collection regime here [wikipedia.org].

In fact a similar situation exists in many european countries: The german ARD and ZDF are are also state channels and by law all groups in society are represented and have influence. The same for dutch (although the details work differently) and swiss state TV.

For example in dutch state TV, political, religious or other groups get a # of hours depending on the number of members they have. There are strict limits regarding programming: a max. amount of advertisement and the nature thereof (not misleading, no

The BBC is a really weird organisation. It's a state-run TV channel, which usually we assume means "propaganda mouthpiece". The BBC is set up in a peculiar way whereby the state collects the money for them but the government is not allowed (in theory) control over the BBC itself. The BBC's charter has various requirements to show balance in political reporting and the government is denied direct mechanisms to interfere in editorial decisions.

It wasn't until I read it put in these terms that I realised that this is really a model that we should be looking at for providing education and medicine in this country. It would stop political interference and ensure that decisions on curriculum etc. were made by experts in the fields rather than as the latest government knee-jerk reaction.

I remember when the Americans made a version of Scrapheap Challenge called Junkyard Wars, and the difference in style was very noticeable and grating - much more loud and obnoxious. But most British TV isn't so good these days - the comedy has been mostly dreadful for the past decade, with Peep Show being an honourable exception.

The BBC isn't "state run" really, and it *is* a good idea, particularly for news and current affairs, as it has much stronger requirements for balance and fairness than typical Amer